Oh, the saga of Princess Eleanor and her bodyguard Jasper on E!'s The Royals. Their dynamic got even spicier — and darker — in the April 12 episode "Unmask Her Beauty to the Moon," and it made me wonder again if Jasper is British or American on The Royals. The palace security detail challenged Eleanor to end their "relationship" at the masquerade ball and he revealed that there was never any sex tape of the two of them. OK, so Jasper didn't date rape Eleanor, but he made her think he did, so this dude is capable of some really messed up lies. So lying about his nationality would obviously be no big deal for Jasper.
Jasper told Eleanor that he's from Las Vegas, but his official royal file says he is from an orphanage in Camden in the U.K. But how could anyone be that good at faking his documentation? I mean, I really don't consider Jasper to be Jason Bourne. The way he ended up at the palace (if he is from America) just doesn't seem feasible — without some serious help from the CIA or something.
Maybe Jasper was sent into the palace for some covert mission to investigate Elizabeth Hurley's Queen Helena. Didn't he start right after Prince Robert died? If Queen Helena does know something about her son's death (which I previously theorized), Jasper could be trying to get intel — regardless if he's British or American. Jasper might have even known Robert and is attempting to figure out how the prince (who was a solider) died.
Queen Helena insinuated that Jasper did not have the correct British accent to be from Shoreditch, so she's already suspicious of him. And with Eleanor away from the palace in the April 19 episode, "The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune," Jasper asks for a transfer ... and he'll now be Helena's security detail. The switch could be because he had fallen in love with Eleanor. Or because this was his plan all along to get closer to his actual target — Helena. Think about it:
I do think for Jasper to have gotten a job in the palace, he'd just have to be British. Actor Tom Austen who portrays Jasper is actually (super) British. (He's so British that he talked to E! about his grandmother's love of the real royal family.) The Royals isn't all about imitating real-life, but maybe a British actor was cast for Jasper because the character is going to eventually be revealed to be British. And then Jasper can stop using his fleeting fake American accent. (Although props to Austen for making me have to look up if he was British or American — someone's been taking elocution lessons.)
Now mine is a pretty insubstantial theory, and what weakens it further is that the American Ophelia is played by British Columbian actress Merritt Patterson and Eleanor herself, Alexandra Park, is Australian. Go figure. So, basing plots off of actors' birthplaces ain't gonna work.
But it is good to note when Jasper decides to choose which accent he's using. When he's alone with Eleanor (like toward the end of "Unmask Her Beauty to the Moon"), he does use his American accent, which could either mean he actually is American or just staying in character for his lie. And actor Austen doesn't help unravel the secrets of Jasper with mysterious tweets like these:
Whether Jasper is American or British (I'm going to bank on British, but part of some top-secret mission), Eleanor managed to get the better of him at the end of "Unmask Her Beauty to the Moon." She tricked Jasper into thinking she was submissive enough to wait around for him and placed a body double in her bed, while she headed to Monaco with Liam and Ophelia.
Eleanor-Jasper 'shippers aren't going to be thrilled with Jasper becoming Helena's bodyguard, but we know that Eleanor and Jasper are the sexiest couple of The Royals — even if in the most dysfunctional way possible. And Jasper's dangerous allure doesn't change whether he's American or British.
Images: Jim Marks Photography/E!; aanathemaa (2), queenhelenas/Tumblr
